Modern Bromance Evolved
by NullNoMore
Summary: Doug and Alexa have a BrOTP of long standing, pizza and beer and good times. But there is something about Mira, right? So maybe the impossible becomes the possible. A couple one-shots. Swears, spoilers. All the good stuff belongs to Monolith Soft.
1. Stay Redux

**Stay Redux**

 **a/n: Alexa did good on a mission. Why isn't Doug happy about that?**

 **All the good things belong to Monolith Soft, with some love to localizers 8-4 and all the English language voice actors. Built off of Alexa's quest "Rapid Misfire", hard spoilers to that.**

 **Swears (sorry, but I can't make Frye say "shoot"), tears, you can imagine fluff but I'm telling you, nope. Set post game, set after Bromance 1.0 "How Can Skells Be Boring?" and "Stay", but you don't need to read those.**

Xcxcxcxcxcxcxcxcxcxcxcxcxc

Doug took another swig of his beer and tried to focus on Frye's plan to mug someone, possibly kill them. "I'm telling you, every time I see his smug little face, I get the urge to break it. Into tiny pieces. Then get Phog to invent a new way to blow those pieces up. I want a professional for that part."

It wasn't always easy to hear what he was saying, what with the surrounding noise from the parking lot and the passing patrons to the Repenta. The stomp of the occasional skell. The more distant but constant clanging from the industrial area. And of course, let's not forget the regular landing and takeoffs of the transport vehicle, now that was something loud. Doug preferred running to using that thing, but there were still plenty of people using it. He tried not to think of them as wusses, reasoning maybe they had a lot of materials to carry. Nope, sorry, wusses.

Luckily, Frye was happy to repeat a point, or even an entire couple sentences, if you missed something. You were lucky when he _didn't_ repeat himself.

"Frye, man, that was a good two weeks ago. Time to get over it."

"He hurt that little girl, and I'm not done."

"That 'little girl' is 25, beating up indigen, and looking just fine, far as I can tell."

"How would you know?"

"Looked into it, okay? I actually asked her, you know, to her face, how's she doing."

"She's not in your division."

"She's not in yours either. She's fine, and if she's not, she can sic Irina on any problem."

"Shit, even I'm not that mean. I just want to kill him." Frye laughed and took another drink from his flask. He still wasn't allowed back in the Repenta – he wasn't the only one not ready to forget things that happened two weeks ago. Doug wasn't sure if he himself was welcome, even if he'd only been a witness to that particular brawl.

He flicked a glance at the Outfitters Hangar. Frye laughed again. "Stalking your girlfriend, classy."

"She's not … you know the drill, Frye. That joke is old."

"So am I. Didn't you just get back from a mission with her?"

"Yup."

"So ain't you had enough time?"

"It wasn't a relaxing stroll, Frye."

The other man dropped his satyr-like mask. "How bad?" he asked quietly, or as quietly as worked in the Repenta Diner parking lot.

"Fifty-fifty."

"Crap."

Doug shrugged. "We couldn't have saved the ones we lost, wiped before we left NLA, probably. We did good by the others."

Frye's face returned to its normal leer. He waved his flask cheerfully at the industrial building across the way. "Speak of the devil. There she goes. Gonna follow her at a distance?"

"See ya." Doug loped through the intersection and caught up with Alexa.

She looked less tired than he expected. Still had that Alexa bounce to her step and a snap in her eyes. He hesitated a second before speaking to her. "Hey, 'Lexa, wanna hang out?"

"I was headed home, Doug. It's been a looooong day. Aren't you tired?"

"Yeah, well, I thought a little video and pizza wouldn't go wrong. Pizza's better if you share it."

"What video you got?"

"Actually, I was hoping you had something. I'm kind of dry."

She laughed. "Oh, Doug, I've got a list you wouldn't believe, and we haven't even scratched the B level ones. Sure, okay. Meet you at your place?"

"Sure."

Three hours later, he still wasn't sure he'd made the right decision. Things had been run of the mill during Douglas' Dinner Theater, featuring Army Pizza's latest creation (Surf and Turf – fatty fish belly and BBQ suid, okay but never going to become a huge favorite) and a Norwegian horror film (with skells, of course, don't be silly, and CGI trolls that would give some of the local tyrants a run for their money). They'd shared the couch like they had a million times before, and Alexa had warned him about the really scary parts. "So you can get ready to cover your eyes," she'd hooted. "My youngest brother, man, he loved zombie films, but we'd always find him awake in the middle of the night, with a flashlight and a dumb look on his face."

"I'm not your brother. Movies don't scare me."

"Easy for you to say now. Wait until the troll-related avalanche happens after this scene."

"Jeez, Alexa, spoilers!"

He'd spun it out as long as he could, offering to make her some cocoa before she left. Finally, when they were both failing to hide their yawns, he broke down and asked. "Hey, Alexa, I'm sorry to spring this on you, but would you mind staying?"

"What, tonight? Uh, sure. Something bothering you?" Her face didn't match her cheerful tone, but he didn't comment on it.

"Nothing much, but I kind of got a weird feeling. I'll take the couch."

"Yes, you will, because I'm not stupid enough to get all noble and self-sacrificing. Your apartment may be a dump, but you got yourself a nice bed." Again, Doug decided to pass on any comments, merely grabbing up an extra pillow and blanket before getting as comfortable as possible on his too short sofa.

He didn't fall asleep. He still wasn't convinced it was a smart idea, but the fact that his feet hung out in the cold air whenever he stretched made the final decision for him. He'd examined his ceiling. He'd counted his breaths. He practiced not looking at the numbers of the clock, winking at him in the semi-darkness. He'd give it a few hours, maybe get up and read toward early morning.

He didn't need to wait that long. A small sound, no louder than a hiccup, had him checking the clock (again). 0140. He'd expected it sooner, during the movie, honestly. He got up, quietly but not stealthily, and walked towards his bedroom.

"Hey, Alexa. What's up?"

She flinched and flipped away from the door, but he could hear her uneven breathing. And the shaking. She was shaking hard enough to make his bed wobble, just slightly. He padded into the room and crouched on the floor next to the bed. He laid his head near the pillows and flopped his arm over her. He was relieved when she grabbed his hand and dragged it towards her face, nuzzling it fiercely and damply. He'd been right.

"S'okay," he whispered.

That was all it took. She started crying hard now, not trying to keep quiet. She shivered and gulped and cried some more. His hand was going to be pretty slimy, eventually, but that was okay by him. He was washable. He just whispered some "shhhs" and "you did good" and "I'm here" at her. After a bit, he reached over and grabbed the tissue box, then poked the back of her head with it. Classy and effective. She ditched his hand (soggy) and pulled out a generous handful. Several honking blows followed, and a deep breath.

"You knew I was going to lose it. How?"

"I didn't know, but I was worried. You're a nice kid, Alexa, and you're not used to seeing this crap."

"I'm older than you."

"No, you're not. I was shaving before you hit elementary school."

"Your mim is younger than mine."

"And we're trying to avoid talking about stuff."

She started crying again, he could tell, but not as hard. Her voice was squeaky when she said, "What's to talk about? My two friends get killed, well, not really, but it _feels_ like it, and all I'm thinking about is skells. And I can't even feel wrong about it."

"So don't try to. You're fine."

"Everyone else thinks I'm crazy. Worse than that, they don't think I'm human. And maybe it's true. I dreamed about their skells, Doug. Not about Hannah or Fernand."

"Oh, Alexa." He waited for her to hiccup some more. "You Outfitters are tight. It was going to hit you hard."

"Not super tight. I didn't know Fernand so well. I liked Hannah. Even if skells weren't her specialty, she was a really nice person. She was always giving me fashion advice. Makes sense, she was focused on amour mostly, you know? She was generous, too, always giving people presents, nice clothes or gear. She gave me that pink t-shirt I wear a lot."

"The one that …" Doug stopped himself mid-sentence (…really). He'd never met Hannah (shows), but if Alexa meant what he thought she meant (off), then he owed Hanna a beer (your), once the Lifehold was in business (…). "Er, it looks good on you," he said awkwardly.

"So why am I crying about skells?!"

"Because you did your very best, and saved two friends, but nothing was going to save the other two. Nothing."

"Not even skells."

"Not even those." He let her snuffle for a minute before asking, "Hey, Alexa, why'd you never tell me about that jet-black skell before? The one you told us about after we'd rescued Camber and Mika."

"I'm not keeping things from you, don't worry," she said with a snap in her voice.

He smiled in the darkness. She was bouncing back to the sharp Outfitter he knew. "No, I know that, but if it was so important to you, why'd you never mention it? It saved your life after the crash on Mira, after all."

She sighed and relaxed. "When I first got to New LA, I told a few people, but they all told me there wasn't any skell like it. It didn't match anything we had, and there wasn't anyone acting in that area. A couple people thought I was making things up, but mostly they thought I had been knocked in the head or something. I didn't bother talking about it after a while. But I never forgot it."

"And I always thought you were a skell nut even back on Earth."

"I was a skell fan, oh yes, loved those things. But only as really neat tech. _Really_ neat. Skells were something to play around with. I loved them, but not like I do now."

"Now they're the things that let you save people."

"Yeah." She shifted towards him and asked quietly, "Would _you_ have believed me, back then?"

In turn, he pushed his head closer to hears, until their foreheads were almost touching. "When we escaped Earth," he began, just as quietly, "there were things some of the pilots saw. I didn't, but I heard about it. It was a black skell, like yours. The guys swore it moved quicker and better than anything they'd ever seen. We didn't talk about it for long, because it didn't make sense. There wasn't anything like it, right? So those guys must have been seeing things, mistaking enemies for allies, something. But, yeah, I would have believed you." His voice dropped to a whisper. "Ever notice how much Speedy looks like a baby version of something else?" He was referring to the prototype skell that had been Alexa's soulmate a few months before.

"Yeah," she whispered back. "I know Speedy was the model for the Ares line, but, yeah, paint it jet-black, give it some steroids, and you'd get something." She yawned. "Is it bad that I want to go back to sleep?"

"Sounds about right." He stood up and stretched, cracking his neck and admiring the painstaking attention to details for their mims. Neck cracking still brought relief, even if they didn't exactly have spines like before.

"Share the bed with me," Alexa said quietly.

"Nope. I'm not stupid."

"Jeez, Doug, I won't pounce on you, even if you do smell like skell. I just feel guilty when you look all stiff and sore in the morning."

He hesitated, then lay down gingerly next to her. "I gotta admit, I love my couch, but only for naps."

There was a shifting and rustling, as Alexa cleared up the used tissues and almost empty tissue box ("Eww, do not want to share the bed with these"), and then another repositioning as Doug reached around to switch the bed's recharging level from one to two bodies ("Doug, you are a dog." "I'm a good host." "How far does it go up?" "You can look in the morning." "Oh, you bet I will.") Then they settled in for as much sleep as they could manage.

"Good night, Dougie. And thanks."

"Your roommates would have helped. Don't worry."

"Maybe, but I'm glad it was you."

"Anytime. Good night, 'Lexa."

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 **a/n: He's done this before, you realize, on the Whale and with someone else; this is only a faint echo. (Somebody needs to write it, not me, go and make me cry, okay? Or make my nose bleed.) I can only hope that in other universes some Cross has grabbed him up, put him in their pocket, and made him smile. Or in my bizzaro universe (Redemption/Do a Test). Or maybe in this arc, eventually, because he does smell like skell.**

 **Redux is pronounced ree-ducks. I've been pronouncing it wrong for several decades.**

 **Next up: It WAS supposed to be about a skell related dream. Instead, I got hijacked by a private Day of the Dead ceremony. So that's what it is, kids.**


	2. After Party

**After Party**

 **a/n: November 2nd, post game, and Alexa and Doug just left the first Day of the Dead party on Mira. But it isn't midnight yet, and Alexa still has some mescal.**

 **Sorrow, fluff, written in under an hour so the typos may be astonishing. Hard spoiler hints to end game.**

 **All the good things belong to Monolith Soft, and I am so freaking grateful I can hardly breathe sometimes. The story of the part is up and labled "Day of the Dead", with my OC Rosalee Lopez the random Interceptor.**

 **Xcxcxcxswitchxcxcxc**

"What's the hurry?"

"It's already 2320. We don't have so much time left"

"Another skell test? Honestly, Alexa. Take a break tonight. Let's go back to the party."

"Not a test. We need to do this at home."

Doug filed his immediate response deep in back of his mind. He knew she must mean something else, and he probably did to. "Fine. Let me get the door."

Alexa's hands were full with a bulging bag of things. "And before you nag, yes, I asked Rosalee if I could borrow all this stuff. Most of this stuff. I may have grabbed a few more things."

"Any mescal in there?" Doug asked hopefully.

"First thing I grabbed." She was poking around his kitchenette, pulling out towels and glasses and dishes.

"I gotta say, that party was a huge success. Your instincts were absolutely right. Native Miran plants making a fine base for mescal."

"My instincts and a good five months of failures."

"Never gave up, though." He laughed. "All of New Los Angeles will be grateful, once they're over their hangovers." Alexa muttered something back at him from deep in a cabinet. He didn't realize his cabinets actually were deep. "Need any help?"

"I said, do you have a tablecloth?"

"Why should I? Don't have a table."

"Because … ha! This will do!" She came round the kitchen island with a red and green blanket in her hands, as well as a pile of other kitchen stuff.

"So that's where it was," he said. "Lin was nagging me. It must have been left over from the picnic. I wonder how it got to my place."

"Let's blame Tatsu. Move that end table over by the window."

Made no sense to him, but he did as he was told. He'd barely cleared and moved it when Alexa flung the blanket over the table. Her hands moved hurriedly, placing a small box at the center back, covering that with a white dish towel, then laying plates and glasses around it. She dragged the bag over and started pulling more things out. She hadn't gotten the first wreath of flowers out when Doug realized what was going on.

"It's one of those altar things."

"Ofrenda. These should be orange, marigolds, you know? These smell all wrong, not bad, just, not right, but I like how the Miran flowers glow, so there's that. Certain smells are best, somehow, don't ask me why. But candles, those let the dead know that we're here." She had set four small tea lights among the flowers and lit them one after another.

Doug was having trouble swallowing. He didn't want to see what came next, but he didn't want to walk away.

"And the food, it helps them remember how many good things there were, fruit and candy. They don't eat it, of course, but it's all a symbol of how much we still love them. A reminder, to them and to us."

She placed a glass of water and a bowl and towel on the floor. "This bit is a little old-school, giving them a way to clean up after their journey. My mom never really got into it. Home, it was a photo and a flower and a candle. But my dad's mom, mi abuela and that crew, wow, they'd fill the garage rec-room with their decorations. The photos went back generations, and she kept everything and added something new each year. Hand me some stuff."

Doug stiffly pulled out a loaf of golden bread and two sugar skulls with cold hands.

"Not for eating, just a warning. If Rosalee did them right, they should be about as much Elmer's as sugar. Plus the tinsel. Not sure about the bread, I think that could be okay." She laid the bread on a plate, flanked by the white skulls, decorated with gold and purple foil stars. The candle light twinkled on them.

"Mescal next. One for them, and don't mind if I do." She had three shot glasses ready, filling them all, and she placed one on the altar before handing one to Doug and emptying her own. She took a deep breath. "Ready?"

Doug held his glass, but didn't answer. She smiled at him, nodded, and smiled again with added warmth. "So, now the photo. Not necessary to save it for last, but I figured…" She walked back to the kitchen and pulled something else from a cupboard. No hesitation. She must have had it ready and waiting.

She returned holding a silver frame, about the size of her hand. She carefully placed the frame and its contents on the white cloth at the top of the altar. Doug, glass of mescal still untouched, stared at it without focusing. A face, dark hair and eyes, a familiar smile. Then he really looked at it and started. He blinked hard, and looked again.

"Where'd you get that?"

"You weren't Lao's only friend, even if you were his best. Other people had photos of her. If all else failed, I would have hit up Eleanora, but I didn't need to. It wasn't that hard."

"Charmaine."

"Yeah. I'm not ready to put up anything else, sorry, Doug, but I can't. And we missed yesterday. That's for the kids. But she can tell them all about it. She can tell everyone…"

He realized she was crying. He put one arm around her and pulled her close to his side. They looked at the altar together.

"I'm sorry, Doug. I can't do better. We're almost out of time. The day's almost over." Alexa sounded sad and stubborn and sorry, all at once.

"You know you did great. You always do that." He squeezed her shoulder, leaned down and planted a kiss on the top her head. "Always."

Eventually, she wiped her face and they shared his glass of mescal. Which wasn't strictly necessary, because it turned out Rosalee had stashed a small second bottle at the very bottom of the bag for them

Xcxcxcswitchxcxcxc

 **a/n: Argh! I was supposed to be so done with this holiday! Three stories, one week, somebody drag my brain out back and use a fire extinguisher on it. Or a snow shovel.**

 **Why am I singing Oceanos by Coast right now? Absolutely off topic. Stupid brain.**

 **Next up: I have no idea anymore, really. Maybe we'll see about Alexa's dream, or maybe I WILL END UP WRITING ABOUT ZARUBOGGAN HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS OR SOME OTHER HORROR!**


	3. Wake Up Call

**Wake Up Call**

 **a/n: Doug, Alexa, and yet another nightmare. This is getting old, right? Nope.**

 **Swears, fluff, hints at all game spoilers, and not quite OOCness.**

 **All the real and amazing stuff belongs to Monolith Soft, and I humbly thank them for it.**

Xcxcxcswitchxcxcxc

A small cry woke Doug up suddenly, to a room mostly dark and otherwise semi-quiet. The traffic outside never really stopped, but he couldn't hear any transport vehicles, which meant it wasn't yet 0300.

He shut his eyes hard, and tried to breathe calmly. He hadn't expected that dream to hit him tonight. No reason for it – he wasn't drunk or exhausted, and today's mission hadn't offered anything he hadn't seen a dozen times before, if you broke it up into parts. But he'd shouted himself awake. Again.

So, there he was, lying in triple darkness, his room, his eyes, his mind. Waiting for his heart (or the mim equivalent) to return to normal. Waiting for the images to fade. He risked a deep breath. He felt strange. Actually, he felt really strange. It wasn't the first time he'd frightened himself awake, but something was off.

He realized he was groggy. The dream had always left him hyper-aware. He couldn't remember any characters in the dream this time, when usually the transition from sleep to wakefulness erased nothing of the horror. Tonight, he just felt like rolling over and going back to sleep. He never felt like that. Honestly, his heart wasn't beating all that fast.

He almost laughed. It must have been a normal nightmare. Something stupid about being in the wrong classroom or falling endlessly or forgetting his armor in the most obvious location. A sleepy smile crossed his face. Nothing about Lao, nothing about a gun, nothing about waiting for a decision with no good answer. Amazing.

He turned carefully to check on the woman lying next to him. He really didn't need to. He knew Alexa well enough to know she only woke when she wanted to, just like she could fall asleep the instant she decided it was time. He envied her those superpowers. But if he'd shouted, or even grunted, she tended to wake up and check on him. Made those real dreams more bearable, having her there at the end, whispering his name and asking if he wanted to get up and talk about the dream, or better yet, about skells. Sometimes they'd do that, sometimes he'd go sit on the couch by himself, reading a bit or staring at the news. Recently, they'd mostly gone back to sleep after a few moments. She'd taken to holding his hand those nights, and he was almost ashamed to admit how much that helped.

They'd only been sharing his bed for a couple of weeks, shortly after Alexa had started staying over most nights (something about her roommate wanting to move her boyfriend in, and Alex being too lazy to find a new place). One night, Alexa had declared that she couldn't stand forcing Doug to ride the couch every night. "Your bed is big enough for an entire team," she'd said. "I swear, I've been in smaller emergency shelters." An exaggeration, but they'd given it a try. If he'd owned a bigger couch, Doug would have argued, but he honestly had gotten a little cramped by the third sleep-over. It was a good solution, but one they were still negotiating. Merely trying not be shocked to find someone next to him in the morning had been a challenge. But Alexa didn't seem to mind, bouncing up with a cheerful, "Morning, Dougie! Whooo!" He smiled in the darkness at the thought. Worked better than coffee to his system.

Weird to spend so much time next to someone without actually doing much touching. They bumped feet sometimes, a version of thumb wrestling that usually had Alexa laughing her head off. And the pillow wars! How many pillows did that woman need?! Twice he'd woken up to a total of zero pillows under his head, and Alexa curled possessively over the whole of them, like a dragon on a golden and fluffy hoarde. Still more comfortable than the couch. And so much better to have someone when he had the bad dream, the really bad one. But that was the only time she did much more than elbow him out of the way, or smack his forehead to wake him up. He thought he could get used to this kind of weird.

Then he heard another small sound, a sharp breath, and realized with surprise that it was _Alexa_ that had woken him, not the other way around. Huh, she must be the one having the nightmare. He peered in the low light. Sure enough, she was still asleep, but her face was tense, and her arms were wrapped tightly just below her chest. He touched her shoulder, and her body gave a little jerk. Poor thing, she was actually trembling. Must be a doozy of a bad dream.

"Hey, Alexa," he rumbled down at her, giving her arm a gentle shake.

She responded with a complaining groan. She rolled over, away from him, and as she did so, her closest hand grabbed at his and dragged him along. She tugged his arm across her, snuggled back up against him, and groaned again. Doug was stuck.

"Alexa, sweetie, I'm here, it's okay. Just, wake up." But all she did was clutch him harder and whimper.

Man, this was getting awkward. When he tried to pull his arm free, she latched on to it fiercely, but when he tried to relax in a semi-embrace, she strained to get away. All the while, judging from the way she was trembling, the dream must have been getting worse. He'd better wake her, and pronto. (He'd also better simultaneously retrieve his hand from the warm and tempting spot where she'd deposited it. Friendship only lasted so long, you know?)

"Yo. Alexa. Wake up." He gave her a squeeze and a solid shake. Unfortunately, her response was to arch back in shuddering surprise, whacking him good with the back of her head. He gripped her tighter, to kind of control any possible future flailing. "Wake up!"

It finally worked. He felt her relax instantly. "Aw, Dougie, why'd ya gotta do that? And let go of me, you dork."

"Sorry." She didn't sound bad or frightened, just sort of pissed off and a little breathless. "I thought you were having a nightmare."

"Gee whiz, Doug, not everybody has rats in their heads. What made you think that?"

"The groaning and shaking."

"I was not."

"Were too. And frowning."

"I was not."

Doug sighed. "If you weren't, you were giving a good impression of it."

"I never frown. Not for that dream…" Alexa suddenly stopped and wriggled away a few extra centimeters.

Doug started laughing.

"Stop it!"

"Oh god, Alexa, I just woke you up from one of _those_ dreams." He added a few more centimeters, because he suddenly felt considerably warmer and didn't need her noticing.

"No it wasn't, and I don't have those kinds of dreams."

"I'm going to have to say it." If he could stop laughing, that is.

"Shut up."

"It had skells in it, didn't it?"

"Shut up, Doug! This is my favorite dream."

He noticed that her tone was hurt, and angry, and maybe a little frightened. He stopped laughing at once. Instead, he reached out one hand to pat her on the head. "Hey, sorry Alexa. You're okay, I know that. Sorry to wake you. I was just worried."

"It wasn't that kind of dream."

"And I'm sorry I made fun of you. I won't say anything more."

"I've had it forever, and now you're ruining it."

"Shhh, it's okay. I'm wrong, nothing new there."

There was a pause. He heard her breathing carefully, trying to decide whether she'd forgive him. When she rolled over back towards him, he relaxed. "Apology accepted, because you are an idiot."

"Pretty much. So… it's a good dream?" Somehow, he just couldn't help asking.

She hesitated. "Yeah. It has my favorite skell."

"The one that saved you? Or Buddy the Beloved Prototype?" He fired off his two best guesses.

"No and no. And I'm over Buddy. He's too much of an ether addict. No, I said, I've had this dream forever. Even on Earth. It's sort of a mix of a lot of the early skells, but bigger and smoother, and all mine. We go out riding in the California desert, and I get to go wherever I want."

"Sort of like real life. Lucky you."

"You bet I'm lucky. Whooo, life is good, right?"

"So just another skell dream." He'd heard a number of those from her, no biggie there.

"Not exactly. It sort of… talks to me."

"Skells don't talk."

"This one does. It tells me how much fun we'll have, how glad it is to be with me, how it'll do anything for me." She fell silent, and her face looked vaguely worried in the darkness.

"Like a friend."

"Yeah. A good friend. Usually it doesn't say much of anything, just a whisper, maybe only my name." She spoke in only a whisper herself.

"Alexa."

"Like that." She sighed.

Doug decided he had two choices. He either needed to get up right that second, make coffee, and walk out into his next mission several hours early, or he'd stay there, just to see what happened.

Alexa sighed again, and reached out for him with one hand. He held it gently. "I'm going back to sleep now, Dougie. Sorry I woke you up."

"Sorry I woke _you_ up, 'Lexa."

"It's okay."

He gave her hand a squeeze. "I'll won't make the same mistake."

"Naw, you didn't know. Just..."

"What?"

"You could say my name again, maybe." With that, she fell asleep.

And Doug realized he'd already made a huge mistake, a disastrous mistake, a crash-landing on a distant planet kind of mistake. He didn't fall asleep, but he didn't stop smiling either.

Xcxcxcxswitchxcxcxc

 **a/n: And if it never advances, I am still cool with this weird thing. I'm not sure if this event is official, or just my brain playing around, but it had to be released. The dream is canon, however. If you want to know more about Doug's dream, visit "Dances with Saltat/3".**

 **Next up: Probably a new story arc, the main body of Lila stories, finally (The Lily and the BLADE). Alexa will show up in Ch. 4 and Ch. 6 (roughly, I keep adding filler), and it features the first hints of this BrOTP, a lot of Mediators, Alexa's birthday party, and the special skell dream, so look for it, kids.**

 **Mind you, every time I say I am done with this pair of dorks, something happens, so I'm not listing this set as complete. Yet.**


End file.
